Amazon’s yearslong practice of offering TV pilots for viewer review and feedback is officially coming to an end, the company announced on Saturday, Entertainment Weekly reports.
The company has continuously released TV show pilots on its streaming service to offer members a chance to vote on what pilots they would like to become a series. Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke announced over the weekend the company will end its process of incorporating viewer feedback into its series development.
“I’d never say ‘never’ but that version is not something we’re doing,” Salkes said on Saturday at the Television Critics Association press tour. “We’ll use our own testing barometers and some user data but the public voting process has been set aside for now.”
Amazon first started this democratic process of generating viewer feedback for Prime shows six years ago. TV pilots would be available for streaming and customers could leave reviews. Though this process alone wouldn’t determine what shows would be picked up and developed, it did give viewers an opportunity to offer input about what kind of content they wanted.
One reason for the change, according to Amazon’s co-head of TV, Albert Chang, was that the process ended up taking too long. Chang said, “You end up taking way too long to get the actual season done.”
Salke said over the weekend: “We’re going to build a more curated group of talented creators and artists, and build out the very best in content for our customers.”